A biased look at psychology in the world

November 14, 2017

Following an investigation into the February 11 death of an inmate at the Oklahoma County jail, officials have officially banned a nurse from seeing any more inmates. Their reason: the nurse, 67-year-old Linda Herlong Jackson, reportedly began conducting an exorcism rather than helping to restrain the combative inmate.

Jackson, a resident of Oklahoma City working for the jail's medical provider, Armor Correctional Health Services, denied the allegation though detention officers have testified that the nurse clearly stated, "I revoke you demons" while the inmate was screaming and thrashing. Another witness reported that Jackson asked first if anyone mind if she conducted the exorcism. The ritual was interrupted by the arrival of a sheriff's lieutenant on the scene who then took charge.

The deceased inmate, 32-year-old Annette Lynette Freeman, had been arrested for methamphetamine possession and began experiencing seizure-like activity in her cell on February 10. Though Jackson was supposed to get the inmate's vital signs, she had difficulty due to the thrashing and reportedly conducted the exorcism instead. Detention officers were eventually able to restrain the inmate and move her to the jail's medical floor where she died the next day. An autopsy determined that she died of a coronary event linked to methamphetamine use.

Agents with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation interviewed Jackson after the inmate's death. Though she denied conducting an exorcism, she did state in a phone interview with local media that the deceased inmate had supernatural strength. She also emphasized that the patient didn't die on her shift and that she was an excellent nurse who like her job and was liked by the inmates at the jail where she had been working for six years. Describing her nursing work as "a form of serving God," she insisted that the allegations arose because her supervisor had been trying to have her fired.

In explaining the decision to ban the nurse from the jail, incoming Sheriff P.D. Taylor insisted that the exorcism incident proved that she wasn't fit to work with inmates. "Her job is to provide medical care," he said. "Doing what she was doing was not providing medical care." An investigator from the sheriff's department is set to meet with District Attorney David Prater about the incident and whether criminal charges should be laid if the inmate death was due to a delay in medical attention.

November 12, 2017

When retired math teacher John Hildreth ran into a former pupil, Don Homuth, in Fargo, N.D. back in the 1970s, he was apparently inspired give him an old map he had inherited from his grandfather. As Homuth, a former Nebraska state senator, would later report, his old teacher said at the time that he probably had the perspective and sense of humour to appreciate the strange gift. Whether out of respect for Hildreth or because he really did have a sense of humour, the map would stay in his possession for another forty years. It was only in 2011, when Don Homuth decided to donate the map to the Library of Congress, that he finally discovered what a find it really was.

As the only complete copy of the "Map of the Square and Stationary Earth" created by Orlando Ferguson in 1893, it represented a strange glimpse into the mindset of one of 19th century America's most bizarre religious zealots. Very little is known about "Professor" Orlando Ferguson today except that he lived in Hot Springs, North Dakota and dedicated himself to proving that the Bible's description of the universe was the only true one. Insisting that the Bible was fundamentally incapable of error, Ferguson used the various biblical passages to create a map of the world that was, well, different from the one you've probably been taught in school.

For not only was the Earth in Ferguson's map completely flat, it was also square with the North Pole as the central point for the Earth's four corners. As for the Earth's edges, they are shrouded in cold and make up the region we incorrectly call the South Pole. He also insisted that the Sun was a mere 3500 miles from the Earth and turns on its own axis around the stationary Earth along with the moon (which is only 2000 miles away) and the stars, all with the Earth at the centre of the universe. And the planets? They didn't exist. Solar and lunar eclipses were due to the tiny stars that sometimes got in the way of the moon or the sun. Given that he insisted that the sun only had a diameter of thirty miles while the moon was only slightly smaller at twenty miles, it seems amazing that eclipses didn't happen more often in his worldview.

In talking about the various scientists, living or dead, that Ferguson was trying to discredit, he had nothing good to say. As far as he was concerned, they were all a pack of liars inspired by the devil to cast doubt on biblical teachings. Based on his own study of Scripture, Ferguson reported finding more than 200 passages which he felt refuted the globe theory. These included passages in which Joshua ordered the sun and the moon to stand still and the various references to the four corners of the and foundations of the Earth. But he also talked about the Gospel tradition in which Satan took Jesus to a high mountain and showed him "all the kingdoms of the world and glory of them." As he triumphantly pointed out, no mountain in the world could have been high enough if the world really was a globe.

But what about compass needles, you ask? Ferguson had that covered as well. In a magazine that he used to publish titled, "The Square World" , he denied that it had anything to do with "loadstone" (sic). He claimed that needles pointed north due to the great masses of ice to the north and south which magnetizes all railroad tracks running north and south. To demonstrate the truth of this, he offered the following experiment: "The first time you are on the Illinois Central or any other road that runs north or south, whet your knife on its rails and you will find that it will be magnetized enough to pick up a needle. Rails running east and west won't magnetize your knife blade."

While all copies of Ferguson's magazine have long since been lost, various newspaper articles have preserved a few precious tidbits intended to refute global theorists. Though globalists have long pointed out that a ship's hull disappears below the horizon before the stem and mast as proof of a spherical Earth, Ferguson had an answer for that as well. "Everyone knows that near the surface, the vapor rising from the water is very dense and it hides the hull of the vessel before it does the mast." As for various claims from world travelers of traveling around the world, all that Ferguson proposed a simple experiment: "Suppose you draw a large circle in a room, and that someone carries a light around that circle. Let that circle represent the equator and the light the sun. If you follow light, you are going west and you come back to where you started. It is the same in going around the world. You can only go around a large circle on top of it. No man has gone around the world or will go."

When not busily rewriting geography textbooks and trying to sell his book by mail order, Orlando Ferguson operated a health resort near his town of Hot Springs, N.D. Living up the town's name, his resort boasted a house and sanitarium where customers could bathe in the mineral springs located on the property. Ever the entrepreneur, he also bottled the water and offered it for sale by mail order. But that was just a sideline, really. He was mainly interested in spreading the word about discrediting the "globe theory" as he stated in one newspaper advertisement that ran in a Lincoln, Nebraska newspaper on August 23, 1891. Having written a 30-page pamphlet that would “set the world thinking”, he wanted to hire agents in “every city on Earth to sell them and, with a retail price of 25 cents each, he insisted that they would “sell at sight.” Interested parties were urged to contact him at his Hot Springs address (no word on whether he would throw in a bottle of mineral water to entice more customers).

Sadly, his zeal never convinced more than a handful of supporters and Ferguson largely faded into obscurity, along with what remained of his Hot Springs resort. His later financial projects, including speculating in Hot Springs real estate and acting as a frontman for a strange scheme to display the petrified body of a Native American man supposedly discovered near his hometown never seemed to go anywhere either.

Visitors to the Library of Congress can still see Orlando Ferguson's map and several copies of his book can be found as well. While he was hardly the first or the last flat earther to try to make a name for himself, his strange map still represents one of the most comprehensive attempts of its kind ever made.

November 10, 2017

A little learning is a dangerous thing;/Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;/There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again. - Alexander Pope

How dangerous is to be overconfident?

While we may be impressed by people willing to make bold statements (especially at election time), the fact is that, more often than not, being overconfident can be a grave mistake. It's no wonder then that Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman stated in his 2011 book, Thinking Fast or Slow, that, if he had a magic wand to banish one judgmental bias from the world, he'd choose overconfidence.

Ironically enough however, the people who are most likely to be overconfident are the beginners who have had just received a taste of whatever skill or topic they are trying to learn. According to the popular "four stages of competence" model developed in the 1970s by Noel Burch and Thomas Gordon, the first and , arguably most dangerous, stage is what they termed unconscious incompetence. In other words, when someone is the early stages in learning a new skill, he or she may not realize how much more there is to learn.

Looking at popular culture, one classic example of an unconscious incompetent is the Sorcerer's Apprentice who, deciding to save himself some work, uses his master's magic book to do the work for him and, of course, failing miserably. Another popular meme that highlights the inability of many people to recognize their own incompetence is the famous Dunning-Kruger effect which evolved out of a classic 1999 study by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger. While it tends to be applied largely to mediocre peoplewho overestimate their ability, the effect can be applied to any beginner in a new field who may not yet realize more training is needed.

A new research article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology presents the results of six studies testing overconfidence in beginners and what it means for their performance. The authors, Carmen Sanchez of Cornell University and David Dunning of the University of Michigan, provided impressive evidence for what they called the "beginner's bubble hypothesis." According to this hypothesis, people who start out learning a task or skill usually begin with a feeling of caution or uncertainty until, following a few early successes, the "beginner's bubble" sets in. At this point,what initially seemed difficult appears much easier than originally feared. This is when the overconfidence kicks in and beginners become unconscious incompetents. Of course, what usually follows is a "correction period" when the overconfidence flattens out and skill continues to improve.

There is a long tradition in psychology of using psychoactive substances to explore altered states of consciousness. Back in the 19th century, William James experimented with amyl nitrate, chloral hydrate and peyote to learn about mystical experiences while Sigmund Freud experimented with cocaine (and became a frequent recreational user as well).

Despite the backlash against psychoactive drugs in the early years of the 20th century, new possibilities arose with advances in biochemistry. When lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was first synthesized in 1938 by the Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman, he actually had no idea what he had discovered. The compound was developed as part of a research program searching for ergot alkaloid derivatives that might be useful in the treatment of migraine headaches. Aside from the "restlessness" that was observed in laboratory animals that were given LSD, no particular value was found in it and Hoffman shelved his discovery for five years. It was in 1943 when he accidentally spilled some of the LSD on his skin that Hoffman slipped into a stupor and, in a dreamlike state, experienced "fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors". That was the beginning of his research into the effects of LSD using himself as a guinea pig. Hoffman's graphic descriptions of visual illusions with bright, intense colours, multiple images of geometric patterns, distortions of body image and subsequent feelings of heightened sensitivity inspired his employers at Sandoz laboratories to perform experiments on other test subjects.

It was Walter Stoll, a psychiatrist at a psychiatric clinic in Zurich, who first began examining the effects of LSD in psychiatric patients and control volunteers. The publication of Stoll's research in 1947 electrified the psychiatric community and Sandoz began marketing LSD as a valuable psychiatric drug under the trade name "Delysid". Not only did Sandoz advertise Delysid as a potential panacea for most mental illnesses (including criminal behaviour and sexual perversions), they also recommended that psychiatrists take it themselves to "gain an understanding of the subjective experiences of the schizophrenic". The key assumption that underlay Sandoz's marketing strategy revolved around what would be known as the "model psychosis" hypothesis. The minute amounts of LSD that led to psychotic features developing in otherwise normal subjects reinforced the idea that schizophrenia and related psychiatric conditions were purely biochemical in nature. Was it not likely that mental illness was due to the human body generating LSD-like substances under conditions of extreme stress? Could research into chemical agents that interfered with the "psychosis-simulating" effects of LSD lead to new biochemical treatments for mental illness? The serotonin (5-HT) hypothesis of schizophrenia was first proposed during this period based on the observation that hallucinogenics such as LSD and mescaline functioned by acting on 5-HT receptors in the human brain. While the actual mechanisms involved appears to be far more complex than initially thought, it seemed only natural for medical researchers of the period to believe that LSD represented a powerful new tool in treating mental illness.

Delysid/LSD first became commercially available in 1947 and demand by researchers led to its wide availability around the world in a matter of months. Despite being marketed to medical doctors, early LSD advocates including Aldous Huxley and Alfred Hubbard (a.k.a. "Captain Trips") ensured that LSD would be seen as far more than a medical tool. Huxley wrote The Doors of Perception (1954) and Heaven and Hell (1955) based on his experiences with LSD and mescaline and these books quickly became classics. While no one could have ever foreseen the role that LSD would play in the counterculture movements of the 1960s, the recreational possibilities seemed clear enough.

From 1950 to 1965, research into LSD and related hallucinogenics generated over 1000 scientific papers and books and was the subject of at least six international conferences. Thousands of patients received LSD as a treatment for everything from schizophrenia to alcoholism.

November 09, 2017

The 2016 presidential election was one of the most politically charged and volatile elections in recent history. The election also saw its first female candidate, Hillary Clinton, represent a major political party. Prior research is inconclusive on how biases can affect political outcomes, with some research showing that racism has affected presidential elections, while others have shown that sexism does not affect elections. However, agentic women often face discrimination and backlash when seeking positions of power. A new study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences sought to extend past work by examining the potential role of sexism in the 2016 election. After controlling for participant sex, time of participation, and political party identification, it was found that individual differences in hostile sexism and traditional attitudes toward women significantly predicted voting for Donald Trump. These results suggest that voter attitudes toward women may have played a role in the election outcome.

November 07, 2017

When the mutilated body of Taz, a male domestic shorthair, was found by his own owner at her home in Potter's Bar, U.K., police quickly realized that it was the latest in a string of cat killings across southwest England. Though the person or persons responsible remain at large, the "Croydon Cat Killer" is believed to be responsible for up to 250 similar killings since 2015. The killings have led to the establishment of a cat forensic laboratory, the first of its kind in the world, and the body of the latest victim is already being investigated for traces of possible DNA linked to the perpetrator. According to police, Taz disappeared from his owner's home on October 17 with no trace being found until the mutilated body was returned a week later.

Following what has been established as the trademark of these killings, the bodies are left in plain sight at the homes of their owners, often with the head or tail removed. Eyewitness accounts describe a possible suspect as being a male Caucasian in his 40s with short brown hair and acne on his face. He has also been described as dressing in dark clothing and carrying a headlamp or torch. Along with killing cats, the killer is also believed to have targeted rabbits and foxes. Police have also not ruled out the killer's involvement in two recent incidents in which cats were found shot, one fatally.

In a statement following the most recent killing, Potter's Bar Police Inspector Pete Edwards warned residents to keep their cats indoors at night and to stay vigilant. "This incident has understandably caused great distress and upset to Taz's owner and I want to reassure the people of Potters Bar and the wider community that we are taking this report very seriously," had said. ""Anyone with information about who is responsible is asked to please come forward as soon as possible. Were you in the area and witnessed someone behaving strangely, perhaps attempting to coax a cat towards them? Any information you can provide could prove vital in the investigation. This is understandably a highly emotive subject for many people and I appreciate that they will be worried about their pets. If you are concerned, our advice would be to keep cats in after dark and overnight, and if you have smaller pets that live outside in hutches I would also advise moving them to a locked shed or garage overnight if possible."

The current investigation is being conducted by the Metropolitan Police and the charity South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty (SNARL) under Operation Takahe.

November 05, 2017

Clark Stanley, a.k.a. "the Rattlesnake King", always knew how to put on a good show.

According to one news account describing his appearance in Hartford, Connecticut's city hall square on July 1, 1902, members of the audience got to watch as Stanley beheaded and skinned one of the rattlesnakes he had on display. Dressed in a "combination cowboy and Indian suit with a novelty in the shape of a four-in-hand tie made of snake skins", the Rattlesnake King showed off his skill in dealing with snakes, as well as how he used the freshly skinned snake to extract the oil that he offered on sale to willing customers. For, yes, Clark Stanley was indeed the original "snake oil" salesman and his rattlesnake oil was billed as a sure-fire remedy for chronic pain and inflammation resulting from lumbago, arthritis, animal bites, and scratches. Quite a bargain for 50 cents a bottle, really.

The process of extracting rattlesnake oil, which Stanley claimed to have learned from Hopi medicine men, was straightforward enough. After decapitating the snake, Stanley then cut the snake open and plunged the body into a pot of boiling water. This supposedly released snake fat that rose to the surface of the water and which he then scooped up and poured into bottles which he then offered up for sale as "Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment." At least, this was what he did during his frequent "medicine shows" on his travel circuit across much of the United States. Not only did countless potential customers line up whenever he came to town, but his graphic killing and dismembering of a rattlesnake was one of the highlights of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago (and a little more family friendly than what H.H. Holmes was doing nearby in his Murder Castle). That the thousands of bottles which he sold through his traveling shows and mail order business rarely had any real snake ingredients was something that wouldn't come out until much later.

We know very little about Clark Stanley's aside from his (mostly fictional) autobiography published in 1897 titled, The Life and Adventures of the American Cowboy: Life in the Far West. Whether or not Stanley actually had the, er, colourful life he descried in his book and his numerous shows, he certainly played the role to perfection. Oh, and the snakes? They were real too. Whenever he did his show, he brought a few rattlers with him to act as props to entice audiences to buy his miracle liniment. As he told reporters, his Texas snake farm boasted hundreds of rattlers though, thanks to the demand for his product, he often had to buy more from animal farms across the country when he ran out. Aside from his liniment, he sold a variety of other rattlesnake-based products and even boasted of his fondness for rattlesnake stew (presumably with the venom sacs removed). Business was so good, in fact, that he had other showmen go on the road as well to sell his products.

Though he was far from the first huckster to sell snake oil remedies, he was definitely the most well known. And there was some basis to the belief in his liniment's effectiveness thanks to Chinese traditional medicine. The Chinese labourers working the railroads often purchased oil made from Chinese water snakes to relieve pain from arthritis and bursitis. While the medical value of this kind of snake oil seems legitimate enough, Clark Stanley and his competitors seemed disinclined to buy snakes from China to sell in the U.S. Instead, he decided to find a local substitute in the form of rattlesnakes which, due to their lethal reputation, had a mystique that he hoped to entice buyers.

Unfortunately, rattlesnakes aren't Chinese water snakes. Not only don't their bodies contain as much of the valuable oils that their Eastern counterparts do but they're also much more venomous. And, as Clark Stanley was soon to find out, supply didn't even come close to meeting demand for his miracle product. Which is apparently what made him decide to, um, tinker with his original formula. Unfortunately for him however, the world was already changing for medical hucksters of all stripes.

By 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act had been passed and tough new standards were put in place to prevent the sale of adulterated food and medication. The Department of Agriculture established a "poison squad" headed up by Chief Chemist Harvey Washington Wiley conducted stringent testing of a wide range of different products being sold to the public. Still, given the various public battles over better health standards for various food industries, Wiley and his squad had their hands full. Which was why it wasn't until 1917 when government inspectors finally seized a shipment of Stanley's snake liniment and conducted a thorough analysis of its contents.

What they discovered was that Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment didn't contain any snake products whatsoever. According to the official report, the bottles contained a rather bizarre mixture of mineral oil, camphor, cayenne pepper, animal fat, and turpentine. While Stanley was charged under the Pure Food and Drug Act for "misbranding" his product, all that amounted to was a measly $20 fine. Still, the government report helped kill the demand for his product and Stanley soon found himself out of business. Even though his scam had likely made him a wealthy man, he never really recovered and quickly faded into obscurity.

Though there have been other medical hucksters since Clark Stanley, his snake oil is still famous enough to lend its name to the myriad other products of dubious medical validity being sold today. So spare a though to Stanley and his hucksterism the next time you see some new miracle remedy for sale. Snake oil doesn't just come from snakes any more.

November 03, 2017

Beginning in 1632, rumours spread throughout the town of Loudon, France about a strange outbreak occurring in the local Ursuline convent. All of the nuns, including the Mother Superior, began experiencing strange convulsions and "using abusive language" (although the lurid details kept changing as the rumours spread). Although the nuns and their priest had attempted to hide what was happening for as long as possible, tales of the demonic possession occurring in the convent eventually led to a formal investigation.

The convent, which had only been founded a few years earlier, already had a reputation for pious living and also functioned as a boarding school for the daughters of well-off families. Almost all of the seventeen nuns in the convent, including the Mother Superior Jeanne des Anges, belonged to minor noble families although the sisters had a difficult time making ends meet. The convent had no income aside from tuition fees and their only significant property was the convent house itself. Due to the reforms imposed by the Council of Trent some decades previously, convent life was strictly controlled by the Church with no males allowed inside the convent walls except for the Father Confessor.

On recently being appointed to that post, the new Confessor Canon Mignon was certainly alarmed by what the nuns began telling him about strange nightly visitations by demons, apparently intent on seducing them. Beginning with the Mother Superior herself and eventually spreading to all of the other nuns in the convent, signs of demonic possession, including sexual moaning, convulsions, speaking in tongues (glossolalia), and visions quickly spiraled out of control. Canon Mignon consulted various medical doctors and eventually arranged for exorcisms to try controlling what was happening. He and his fellow priests became increasingly alarmed when the nuns reacted to the exorcisms by screaming and making lewd sexual advances towards the priests. Even more outrageous was the Mother Superior accusing a local priest, Urbain Grandier, of being responsible for what was happening. The nuns, led by Jeanne des Anges, insisted that the possessions were due to two devils named Asmodeus and Zabulon and that Grandier had sent them to the convent after throwing roses over the convent wall.

Grandier was, by all accounts, a most unusual priest. Handsome and well-connected, he had already gained a scandalous reputation, not only for being politically outspoken but also for the less-than discreet affairs that he had with numerous women in the town (including fathering several children). Despite numerous complaints by outraged husbands and fathers, Grandier was protected by the local Huguenot community who admired his outspokenness and his bold attacks on the Church and its special privileges. When his bishop had Grandier arrested in 1630, he was formally banned from serving as a priest in Loudun at which point his family and friends went to work on his behalf. Using bribery and intimidation of the witnesses against Grandier, they managed to have him reinstated in 1631. All that the ecclesiastic panel was able to do was to issue a mild warning for Grandier to “behave well and decently according to the Holy Decretals and Canonical Constitutions”. Although the bishop warned Grandier to leave Loudun, he ignored the advice and regarded his acquittal as a total victory. He even went so far as to harass all of the townspeople who had testified against him including demanding legal restitution in court. While friends tried to talk him out of this campaign, he ignored them all. It would be a costly mistake.

Ironically, Urbain Grandier had offered his name for the post of Father Confessor for the Ursuline convent in town despite his sinister reputation. The job went to Canon Mignon instead and sparked an uncomfortable rivalry between the two priests, especially since Mignon had been involved in his previous trial. As for the nuns, many of whom had supported Grandier becoming the Father Confessor for the convent, exactly what was causing the strange stories of nightly visitations and demonic seductions is still open to question. Whether Urbain Grandier was actually sneaking into the convent somehow or that the strange epidemic was entirely due to mass hysteria on the part of the nuns, the rumours of what was happening in the convent spread beyond the town. Not only did parents withdraw all of the convent’s students one by one, but the convent's nuns were left completely destitute when their own families withdrew all support.

Grandier knew full well the danger that he was in and he arranged with the Archbishop of Bourdeaux to have his personal doctor examine the nuns. When no medical evidence for the possessions was found, the Archbishop ordered the exorcisms to end and arranged for the nuns to be imprisoned n their cells. Canon Mignon and his assistant then went over the Archbishop's head and asked King Louis XIII's chief minister Cardinal Richelieu to order an investigation. Since Richelieu was a frequent target of Grandier's political diatribes, he likely saw this as an excellent opportunity to rid himself of the renegade priest once and for all. That one of Richelieu's own relatives was one of the Loudun nuns likely didn't help matters either. The Cardinal sent a team of investigators to Loudun and authorized them to do whatever was necessary to end the possessions (including threatening to tear down the convent and the surrounding town).

During a public exorcism conducted before more than seven thousand people, the chief exorcist, Father Jean-Joseph Surin invited the demons possessing the nuns to inhabit his own body, the demons reportedly complied and he "lost mental balance as a result". Father Surin inflicted various injuries on himself and then attempted suicide. After being restrained and regaining his sanity,the exorcist said that he was "unable to understand what happened to him" when the unknown spirit entered his body. As the exorcisms continued, the accusations against Grandier became even more lurid and the nuns claimed that they were possessed by a multitude of demons. When Grandier attempted an exorcism himself to clear his name, the supposedly possessed nuns answered his threats by making him seem more guilty than ever (their testimony had likely been coached by Richelieu's investigators). After a formal document surfaced, allegedly showing the pact between Grandier and Satan and written in blood, Grandier's fate was likely sealed.

Urbain Grandier was imprisoned at the Castle of Angier in December, 1633. Despite protests by his supporters, he was stripped, shaved, and his body searched for "devil's marks". When he refused to confess to sorcery, he was repeatedly tortured according to the practices laid out n the Malleus Maleficarum. Anyone courageous enough to speak out on Grandier's behalf (including some of the nuns) were threatened by the Church and the Crown. Eventually, the presiding inquisitor announced that anyone who testified in favour of Grandier would be declared traitors to France and have their property seized. 4

With all supporters silenced, the outcome of Urbain Grandier's trial was a foregone conclusion. He was found guilty of magic, maleficia, and of "causing demoniacal possession of several Ursuline nuns of this town of Loudun, as well as of other secular women, together with other charges and crimes resulting therefrom". Grandier's steadfast refusal to confess his crime despite being his torture and the severity of his punishment hardly moved his persecutors. As one of the monks charged with trying to convert him prior to his execution later said, "I am not astonished at his impenitence, nor at his refusal to admit himself guilty of magic, both under torture and at his execution, for it is known that magicians promise the devil never to confess the crime, and he in turn hardens their heart".

Despite promises that he would be allowed to make a public statement and that he would be humanely garroted beforehand, Urbain Grandier was burned alive at the stake on August 18, 1634. According to one story, Grandier promised that one of the attending priests, Father Lactance, would died within thirty days and that many of his other persecutors would die as well. While Father Lactance died on schedule (reportedly crying that he was not responsible for Grandier's death), the legends surrounding Urbain Grandier and the Loudun possessions hardly ended there. Many of the participants who were involved in Grandier's execution died within a few years of his execution, whether due to remorse or a dying magician's curse seems to depend on which account of the time you happen to read.

And the Loudun possessions didn't end with Grandier's death either. Mother Superior Jeanne des Anges (who seemed to have some exaggerated views of her own piety) insisted that the exorcisms continue since she and her nuns were still being possessed by devils. Public exorcisms of the nuns continued until 1637 when Richelieu himself ordered them stopped and the investigation ended. Hardly anyone else in positions of power really believed that Grandier had been guilty but the story of the Loudun possessions and Grandier's fate made for a graphic lesson of what happened to anyone who crossed Cardinal Richelieu. That the public exorcisms helped convince many local Protestants to convert to Catholicism seemed to be an extra benefit. As for the "contract" with Satan supposedly signed by Grandier, many modern historians are divided over whether Grandier's signature had been completely forged or whether Grandier had signed it himself during one of his torture sessions.

Whether the Loudun possessions began with mass hysteria or as an entirely staged power play on Cardinal Richelieu's part, the case has been examined in depth by numerous authors including Alexander Dumas (pere) and Jules Michelet. Aldous Huxley's full-length book, The Devils of Loudun was published in 1952 and inspired a successful stage play as well as a classic horror film by Ken Russell. The continuing fascination with Urbain Grandier's case may well be due to the role that religious persecution and cynical political manipulation played in his torture and gruesome death. That accused sorcerers are being killed today over evidence just as flimsy as what condemned Grandier centuries ago suggests that the lessons of his case have still not been learned.

November 02, 2017

Although the relationship between childhood adversity (CA) and depression is widely accepted, there is little information on what proportion of depression is attributable to CA. A new research study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders used a Swedish cohort of 478,141 individuals born in 1984–1988 in Sweden. Register-based CA indicators included parental death, parental substance abuse and psychiatric morbidity, parental criminality, parental separation, public assistance recipiency, child welfare intervention, and residential instability. Estimates of risk of depression, measured as retrieval of prescribed antidepressants and/or psychiatric care with a clinical diagnosis of depression, between 2006 and 2012 were calculated as Hazard Ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI), using a Cox regression analysis. Results showed that all CAs predicted depression in early adulthood. Furthermore, the predictive association between the CA indicators and depression was graded, with highest HRs observed for 4+ CAs (HR: 3.05 (95% CI 2.83–3.29)) for a clinical diagnosis for depression and HR: 1.32 (95% CI 1.25–1.41) for antidepressant medication after adjustments were made for important confounding factors. Of the studied CAs, child welfare intervention entailed highest HR for depression. Regardless of causality issues, children and youth with a history of multiple CA should be regarded as a high-risk group for depression by professionals in social, and health services that come into contact with this group.

November 01, 2017

How active are you really? Answering that question may be harder than you think.

Certainly medical studies have long demonstrated that physical inactivity can account for one in ten deaths worldwide. With that in mind, the need to stay active has been drilled into us by countless media campaigns, school and workplace programs, and repeated warnings from family physicians whenever we get a checkup. Unfortunately, that lesson doesn't seem to be sinking in with 79 percent of adults in the United States alone not meeting minimum exercise guidelines. As a result, the World Health Organization suggests that the number of deaths that can be linked to physical inactivity will rise sharply over the next twenty years.

Still, new research suggests that the way people perceive their level of physical activity can also play an important role in shaping physical health as actual exercise does. For example, many people may be more physically fit than they realize given the amount of time they spend on their feet all day or their regular level of activity doing their jobs. Despite this regular activity however, they may not see themselves as physically fit because they aren't exercising as they are told they should. In the same way, new studies have yielded intriguing conclusions about the role that perception can play on stress, aging, and even mortality. For example, stress researchers have found that highly stressed U.S. adults who perceive stress as being harmful are 43 percent more likely to die prematurely than highly stressed adults who don't share that perception. On the other hand, people who view stress as healthy tend to much more adaptive when dealing with acute stress.

But what about perceived physical activity, i.e., whether or not we regard ourselves as physically active as other people our age? Could it have a positive effect on health and mortality rates? A new study published in the journal Health Psychology suggests that it can. Using comprehensive medical data from three nationwide surveys with a total sample size of 61,411 U.S. adults, Octavia H. Zahrt and Alia J. Crum of Stanford University have demonstrated that perceived physical activity can play a dramatic role in quality of life over time.